Seriously…stop me if you’ve heard this one

Gov. Martin J. O’Malley, in an appearance on Fusion, an English language news and satire network aimed at U.S. Hispanics, told Jorge Ramos that he is “seriously considering” running for president in 2016.

“I have a great deal of respect for Hillary Clinton,” O’Malley told the paper in that interview. “But for my own part, I have a responsibility to prepare and to address the things that I feel a responsibility to address. .?.?. To squander this important period of preparation because of horse-race concerns and handicapping concerns is just not a very productive use of energy. .?.?. Right now, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing — the thought work and the preparation work.”

“I need to be spending a lot more energy and time giving serious consideration and preparation to what — if anything — I might have to offer should I decide to run for president in 2016,” O’Malley said during a wide-ranging interview with editors of The Baltimore Sun.

The next iteration came 15 days later, during a trip to Israel.

“I plan for the latter half of this year to dedicate some more thought time — reflection time — to the question of whether or not I would run in 2016,” O’Malley, a former mayor of Baltimore, said in the story.

Trips to Iowa and New Hampshire–states key to presidential primaries–have reinforced the seriousness of his consideration.

So far, polling has forecast serious obstacles, including a 2013 poll in Iowa in which one political consultant said O’Malley was “little more than a footnote” and a Gallup national poll last month that showed nearly 70 percent of those surveyed had never heard of O’Malley.

Buried in the Ramos interview was a pretty savvy question in which O’Malley was asked if he was writing a book—sometimes a precursor to an actual candidacy announcement.

The governor deftly dodged the question, responding only that he’s always writing.

And when he’s not, he’s seriously considering a run for president in 2016.